On the one hand, the comparisons of the $21 trillion with a single year of anything (as the article does with annual federal budget and the annual GDP) is an apples and oranges type comparison. A figure reprsenting something accumulated over 17 years is never figure compared one-to-one with a figure from a single year.
On the other had, if you averge the total $21 trillion over the 17 years, it represents $1.2 trillion a year, which is more than the DOD officially spent in any of the 17 years covered in the analysis.
How many ways can you say “waste” and why is the GOP always afraid to attack that waste, as if they were attacking “defense”? In reality the GOP is as afraid to fight the DOD on waste as they are to fight the media on its political agendas.
They are “losing” more than their entire budget in some years. You can’t lose a trillion accidently.
That are not losing it, they are acting as a conduit.